Are your neighbors driving you crazy? If you have neighbors, and more than 98% of people living in North America do, chances are likely that you will have some type of altercation with them during your lifetime.
I can remember moving into our house when I entered junior high school. I absolutely loved the idea of having new neighbors. We had lived in an apartment previously, and those people were so close they seemed like extended family living a few rooms down from us. It was so different in the house. I would walk around the neighborhood and tell people who I was. I would tell them my first and last name, who lived in my house with me, where we had lived before, and offered them my telephone number. It was a glorious time.
About a year later one of our neighbors got drunk and drove into his garage. I mean directly into the front of it before opening the garage door. That was when I learned how they could really be. There was gossip and we learned everything about this man and his family from the neighbors. I made a mental note to be very careful what I told them from then on. It left me with a very bad taste in my mouth.
On the other hand, neighbors can be very important in an emergency. When I was in the Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles in 1994, they were a source of friendship and compassion that helped us all. We pulled together during that time and have remained close since.
My suggestion is to get to know your neighbors at least superficially in the beginning and then see if there are certain ones that you have more in common with. If you have a disagreement with a neighbor try to work it out yourself before the situation escalates. They are here to stay so we might as well get along with them.
